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Academic Libraries

"The Mobile Register has a good article that profiles library building projects at the University of South Alabama and Spring Hill College. Quotes from both library directors and Helen Spaulding are included. The gist of the article is that academic libraries need buildings that respond to the wants and interests of the academic community - hence more computers, more ports, more food and beverages, etc. File this one under "response to deserted buildings".

Charley Hivey was first in with This CNN Article on the long-buried Villa of the Papyri, one of Italy's richest Roman villas, which opened to the public this weekend almost 2,000 years after it was submerged in volcanic mud.

Hundreds of scrolls have been carefully opened and many others could be read in the near future thanks to digital and scanning technology.

The scrolls, which looked like sticks of charcoal when they were first discovered, have mostly turned out to be works of Greek epicurean philosophy from the first century BC.

One From The St. Louis Post-Dispatch on students reluctance to buy books for class in college.
The National Association of College Stores, which estimates that about 20 percent of undergraduates nationwide aren't buying, renting or otherwise acquiring the books their professors expect them to have. In surveys, only about 42 percent of students have told the association they think textbooks are necessary.
One student says she uses the library to the extent possible, reading texts that professors have put on reserve there or checking them out. She calculates that by doing so, she spent only about $100 buying books this semester.

Jen Young points us to This NYTimes Story all the archaeological sites in Iraq.
They say 10,000 have been identified, but only a fraction have been explored. Any of them could change what we know about human history, as past excavations have done. Some have already revealed the world's earliest known villages and cities and the first examples of writing.

"NARA has launched a powerful new research tool called Access to Archival Databases (AAD). AAD will give researchers the opportunity to search selected archival databases directly through the Internet..."

"The Access to Archival Databases (AAD) System gives you online access to electronic records that are highly structured, such as in databases. The initial release of AAD contains material from more than 30 archival series of electronic records, which include over 350 data files totaling well over 50 million unique records. The series selected for AAD identify specific persons, geographic areas, organizations, or dates. Some of these series serve as indexes to accessioned archival records in non-electronic formats. The AAD system does not, however, support quantitative or statistical analysis of data." (from NARA News and Events)

"The library is talking about a pizza box advertising campaign. They're half kidding, but touting self-promotion and stretching for solutions is exactly the idea."

"It's the battle between Google and the library -- and Google just might be winning."

"I had a senior history major in the other day asking how to use [library] research databases," Assistant Director for Research and Instructional Services at Van Pelt Library, Marjorie Hassen says. With four years of Ivy League college under his belt, not to mention a reading and writing intensive history major, "you'd think he would have done a lot of research before." (from The Daily Pennsylvanian - Thanks Genie)

Charles Davis writes "
Public records on microfiche
containing millions of personal
details have gone missing from
Bristol Central Library.
Up to 1,400 fiches that relate to
births are missing, as are 1,000
relating to marriages and 1,000
to deaths.
One microfiche was said by the
library to hold "hundreds" of
details.
They were discovered to be missing when users at the library began tracing their family history.
The library has estimated that it will cost £20,000 to replace the missing microfiches.Full Story

Jen Young sent along A NYTimes Travel Article on The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens - a grand institution that encompasses a world-class library; fine, far-reaching art collections including Constable landscapes and elegant French clocks; and encyclopedic botanical gardens on 207 rolling green acres - is mind-boggling in its riches.

The NYTimes Says the Florida ballots are still there, nearly six million punch cards and their chads, stowed in boxes, stacked on pallets, wrapped in plastic.

The state has kept them for two years, as federal law requires. Now that the time is up, a pressing question for state officials here is: What do we do with these things?

"This is the most controversial presidential election in modern history — an election that was viewed by the world for 36 days and ultimately decided by the Supreme Court," said Julian Pleasants, a history professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville. "It's an important series of events that should be saved for future generations."

Charles Davis writes "Atelegraph.co.uk Story on a £20 million appeal to open to the public a priceless nmedieval library - whose works include an eye-witness account of the Battle of Hastings - has collapsed in an acrimonious dispute.
Senior members of the fund-raising committee at
Cambridge University have resigned and donors
have withdrawn their pledges from the Parker
Library Appeal at Corpus Christi College, the home
of one of the world's leading collections of
manuscripts dating from the sixth to the 16th
centuries. "